Shibataea Makino
After Keita Shibata, Japanese botanist.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Small, shrubby perennial; rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafy. Culms 20–100 cm high; woody and persistent; to 0.5 cm in diameter; flattened on one side; not scandent (zigzag); branched above. Culm nodes 2 ridged. Primary branches/mid-culm node 2–6. Culm sheaths deciduous in their entirety (papery). Pluricaespitose. Rhizomes leptomorph (rhizomes metamorph type I). Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate. Leaf blades broad; 12–25 mm wide; pseudopetiolate; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud; an unfringed membrane; truncate. Contra-ligule present.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence indeterminate (?); with pseudospikelets (apparently - but the description seen unclear); with few-spikeleted racemes in lateral, spatheate clusters; spatheate; a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs (but spikelets without basal outer bracts). Spikelet-bearing axes very much reduced (of few spikelets); persistent. Spikelets not secund.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 15–18 mm long; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes (?). Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret.
Glumes two, or several (?); very unequal; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; pointed; awnless; similar (ovate-lanceolate). Spikelets with female-fertile florets only, or with incomplete florets (?).
Female-fertile florets 2. Lemmas ovate-lanceolate; entire; pointed; awnless; hairless; non-carinate; 9–10 nerved. Palea present; relatively long (about equalling the lemma); entire (pointed); several nerved; 2-keeled. Palea back glabrous. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate; not toothed; heavily vascularized. Stamens 3. Anthers not penicillate; without an apically prolonged connective. Ovary glabrous; with a conspicuous apical appendage. The appendage broadly conical, fleshy. Styles fused (into one, trifid above). Stigmas 3 (feathery).
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit medium sized (7 mm long); not noticeably compressed (cylindric).
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata, or not over-arching the stomata; several per cell (one or more than one row per cell). Long-cells differing markedly in wall thickness costally and intercostally (costals thicker). Mid-intercostal long-cells having markedly sinuous walls (thin). Microhairs present; panicoid-type (but variable in shape). Stomata common. Subsidiaries low to high dome-shaped. Intercostal short-cells common; in cork/silica-cell pairs, or not paired. Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows (but frequent long short-cells). Costal silica bodies saddle shaped, or ‘panicoid-type’ (or cuboid); often cross shaped, or butterfly shaped, or dumb-bell shaped; not sharp-pointed.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with arm cells; with fusoids (but small and inconspicuous). Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs (low), or adaxially flat; with the ribs more or less constant in size. Midrib conspicuous; having complex vascularization. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans. All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present (with all the bundles); forming ‘figures’ (the large bundles).
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. 2n = 48. 4 ploid. Chromosomes ‘small’.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 3 species; eastern Asia.
Holarctic. Boreal. Eastern Asian.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960.
Special comments. Description very poor. Fruit data wanting.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘Grass Genera of the World: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval; including Synonyms, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Phytochemistry, Cytology, Classification, Pathogens, World and Local Distribution, and References.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).